Howto use two Authentification Schemes at once?

Question

I'm still new to certain Apex aspects. At the moment I'm struggeling with the implementation of different Authentification algorithms.
I currently have a small APEX application that does the user authentification by LDAP (AD). However I want to add a few special users (GUEST, ADMIN, etc.) that are not in the active directory/LDAP but that exists as "normal" APEX user.
Question is: How can I use two different Authentification schemas for one application at the same time?
So that a user with a valid windows login is authenficated by its windows username/pwd
and a guest user who is not in the LDAP but is configured as APEX user will be authorized too.
The order of the different authorization schemas might also play a certain role here.
Any hints/links how to achieve this are very welcome.
Edited by: Sven W. on Nov 6, 2009 12:49 PM: Changed Autorization to Authentification

Answer 1

Together with a fellow collegue we created a database function that checks for the application, fetches the current authentication schema and uses the LDAP information from there. It is not perfect, but serves our purpose well. Feel free to reuse or comment on it.
create or replace package body SYN_UTIL
as
    FUNCTION apex_ldap_authenticate (
      p_username in varchar2,
      p_password in varchar2
    ) return boolean as
      v_login_result  boolean := false;
      v_ldap          raw(32);
      v_ldapres       binary_integer;
      v_un            varchar2(100);
      v_ldap_port     varchar2(100);
      v_ldap_host     varchar2(100);
      v_app_id        integer;
    BEGIN
       -- test for empty variables
         if p_username is null then
               raise_application_error(-20001, 'Please insert Username and Password!');
         end if;
         if p_password is null then
               raise_application_error(-20001, 'Please insert Username and Password!');
         end if;
         -- check for APEX-workspace-users
        if  not v_login_result then
          if APEX_UTIL.IS_LOGIN_PASSWORD_VALID(
            P_USERNAME => p_username,
            P_PASSWORD => p_password
          ) then v_login_result := true;
          end if;
        end if;
        if not v_login_result then
          -- LDAP-Login
          dbms_ldap.use_exception :=true;
          -- get application-id    
          v_app_id := NV('APP_ID');
          -- get LDAP information from views     
          select auth.ldap_host, auth.ldap_port, auth.ldap_dn_string
          into v_ldap_host,v_ldap_port,v_un
          from APEX_APPLICATIONS ap
          join apex_application_auth auth on ap.application_id = auth.application_id
              and ap.AUTHENTICATION_SCHEME = auth.AUTHENTICATION_SCHEME_NAME -- current authentication
          where ap.application_id =  v_app_id;
          -- LDAP init
          v_ldap := DBMS_LDAP.INIT(
            HOSTNAME => v_ldap_host
           ,PORTNUM  => v_ldap_port
          -- extract domain from v_un and add p_username
          v_un := replace(v_un,'%LDAP_USER%',p_username);
          -- connect to LDAP-server
           begin   
            v_ldapres := DBMS_LDAP.SIMPLE_BIND_S(
                LD     => v_ldap,
                DN     => v_un,
                PASSWD => p_password
           exception
            -- only handle defined exceptions
            when others then
                 v_login_result := false;
           end;
           -- disconnect from LDAP
           v_ldapres := DBMS_LDAP.UNBIND_S(LD => v_ldap);
           v_login_result := true;
        end if;  -- not v_login_result
      return v_login_result;
    END;
end SYN_UTIL;THis function is put where usually the default LDAP logic is used.
In the field Authentication Function instead of -LDAP- this function is called.
return syn_util.apex_ldap_authenticate; A minor point still is that any entry in "LDAP Username Edit Function" is not considered.
But since we don't use that currenty we didn't made the effort to integrate it.
Edited by: Sven W. on Nov 10, 2009 3:20 PM